Namaste

Entries Tagged as 'Nepal'

May 2008, we left for Everest in a cramped jet built for 15, including the crew, and endured a harrowing 35 minutes to Lukla Airport. Built on an incline, the 900ft mountain slope runway decelerates the plane to a screeching halt and within an hour, it is reloaded, circling around for takeoff. The nose lowers […]

I came to see the rhinos and we trekked thru grasslands and jungle forest to find them. In the grasses, which are higher than me at this time of year, the guide said we’d notice movement of large animals by the rustling. Yet it was the still grass of animals lying in wait that concerned […]

Ten bucks for the tourist bus, luxury non-stop with air con. Or, maybe, no aircon. And maybe just one stop: to kick us off. The students were pissed. Three months ago the government promised them books, pens, and paper. Three months later, they still had none and it was the week before exams. So they […]

Peter Habelar was the first man to summit Everest without oxygen. He did it with legendary climber, Reinhold Messner, and the night before our first attempt to fly home, we showed him how to play pool. He’s a much better mountaineer. The next morning, after everyone else flew out of Lukla, we sat in an […]

Getting down is the hardest part and we were aggressive. So much so, we broke our Sherpa and had to pay him double that day. On the second descent day we nursed our ailments from the previous day’s twelve hour hike with dal baat and chang (the rice wine). We drank a lot of chang […]